Pawns and Players
by Morgan Coldsoul
Summary: Ten thousand years in the future, Abeir-Toril has become a fantastic land filled with technology equal to ours, but with the added twist of magic. What part does a young tiefling have to play? (slight YAOI)
1. The New Student

Morgan: I think my muse was drunk last night.  
  
Chuchiru: (burps)  
  
Morgan: Fortunately, so was my block.  
  
Chuchiru: Don't--(hic) don't be hatin'.  
  
Morgan: Anyway, this was the result. I don't own Dungeons and Dragons, or any of the kingdoms/worlds/people/whatever that appear therein. If I did, the movie would've been a lot better and I'd be living in a custom-made castle somewhere far enough from civilization to remain in blissful, delusional ecstasy.  
  
Chuchiru: (yarks on Morgan's shoe)  
  
Morgan: YAAAAAAAAAARGH! What have you done!?  
  
Chuchiru: I just accomplished one more of my goals than you have.  
  
Morgan: Grrr-- (eyes glow green, summons energy blade Kagato-style) Kamae na za Shinigami, Wakusei Assaiki Doragon Hougeki!  
  
Chuchiru: Meep!  
  
* * *  
  
He was a goth.  
  
There was no mistaking it: black dungarees, black gauze shirt that cut off just above his taut stomach muscles, black unconnected sleeves from biceps to wrist, black boots covered with metal plates. His hair, too, was jet black, although it was naturally so rather than dyed like that of many people who fell into the same fashion category. Around his neck was a midnight leather collar studded with shiny steel spikes; around his left wrist was a matching bracelet. His right earlobe sported a small, red jewel in a silver setting.  
  
Most of the eyes in the school lobby initially turned to him because of his clothing, which seemed almost to absorb the pale morning late streaming through the glass front doors of the facility. Anyone who looked, however, held their gaze on him for several reasons that had nothing whatsoever to do with his taste in garments:  
  
The first was his tail.  
  
It descended from the base of his spine through a hole cut below the waistband of his dungarees, perhaps four feet long and ending a large bone barb like an arrowhead. It lashed nervously behind him as he walked across the large, open lobby toward the school office, causing him to grow a rather self-conscious look.  
  
He was also pale--dreadfully pale. It wasn't the normal lack of color one found in those who went outside very little so much as a total lack of any hue. He was as white as bleached bone, which only caused his dark hair, eyebrows, and long lashes to stand out even more. His eyes, too, were conspicuous: the irises were the red of fresh blood, split by pupils that were shaped like six-pointed stars. The eyes glanced neither left nor right, but stayed fixed on his goal, the office door. When he reached it, a chalky hand darted out, twisted the handle--and he was inside, leaning with his back on the door, breathing out heavily.  
  
He had known that it would be like this. He had told his mother and father it would happen if he went to a new school. Every time he walked down the hallway, or into the cafeteria, or to his seat in a classroom, the other students would stare at him like he was an exotic animal that had gotten loose from its cage. Indeed, he had certainly felt on display, with all those stares on him like he was a mad dust mephit that had finally broken out of its cage and made good its escape before its wizard master had gotten home.  
  
It had been like that at his original school, too, although it hadn't been as bad as he knew it was going to be here. In his first years among other students, when they were all young children who would accept each others' differences as merely 'cool,' he had been popular. He would entertain his friends by arm-wrestling with his tail, hanging upside down from the ceiling, or winning a five-on-one game of hoopball by throwing the ball across the court to himself. By his middle years, though, prejudice had started to develop amongst former playmates, as always seemed to happen when children reached their adolescent years. Instead of being 'cool,' he became 'weird,' and was in effect gradually ostracized from all but a small group of close friends. Little social groups started to form, and since his friends remained with them because they shared his general outlook and ideas, they naturally ended up in the same clique. They dressed in black and chains--some even wore black makeup here and there, or got tattoos--and grew into what everyone else called 'gothics.'  
  
Since they all knew him at that school, however, even the ones who made fun of him for his appearance or insulted him because he was planetouched accepted his presence at some level. Growing up with a person makes you ignore all sorts of characteristics you might otherwise criticize- -even after you turn around and start being horrible to them for no better reason than you've found new friends. Changing educational facilities, though, would drop him in the midst of a crowd of teenagers who were going through 'that stage,' most of whom had never even seen a tiefling like him. They wouldn't readily accept him as they might a normal human, or even a more common deviant like a half-elf. They would gasp, stare, and point. Some would laugh. Some would say things. At least one would throw something. He would be the perfect target for bullies looking for fresh meat, unpopular at lunch and break times, the one that was automatically suspected when a prank was pulled or a fight was started.  
  
There lay another problem. He winced as he realized that someone would eventually try to fight with him. Young people his age were struggling through that dominant phase that made them do that, for whatever reason, and since he was especially different, someone would test his abilities simply because they thought they could pick on a freak like him without worry of retribution.  
  
His face--a handsome one despite all his abnormal features--hardened into a determined expression. He would deal with that when it came, as it surely would. Until then, he would steel himself, endure the abuse, pass his classes with his usual flying colors--he smiled at this, which would certainly put some of them in their place when it was pointed out to them in the face of their own inadequacies in those areas--and hope he made a friend or two.  
  
He walked further into the office, notifying the gaping receptionist-- ye gods, the faculty would be the same as the student body--that he was signing in for the first day.  
  
"Er-- Name?" the human woman asked tentatively. She adjusted her stylish spectacles and pulled a stylus from behind her ear.  
  
"Ashnod Ephyon Darkling," he supplied, switching the books he held under one arm.  
  
She dutifully put that down, handed him his list of assigned classes-- art being the only one of which he had actually requested--and bade him good morning. He sighed, tensing himself for the first trip to class, and exited the room.  
  
* * *  
  
As the young tiefling made his miles-long journey across the lobby to the hallway that provided access to the first-floor classrooms, everyone broke off what they were doing to watch again. He ignored them regally and swept down the corridor, not looking back.  
  
Conversations buzzed with whisper after whisper as soon as he darted into one of the rooms, and only a few minds there were thinking anything that wasn't spiteful. In fact, on a note that entirely surprised the owner of one mind, there was actually a small stir of attraction at the sight of the slim body, muscular like a cat and as graceful. The person sternly grasped those feelings, inspected them, warned them against doing anything stupid, and stuffed them away for later perusal. The bell rang, and that person, along with two others, suddenly realized that they all had the same first-period class as the tiefling.  
  
Things in art would be interesting. 


	2. The Art of Making Friends

Morgan: Here is the second chapter in record time, because my life is a limp, pale, motionless thing that I only spend time with by watching it die in my hand.  
  
Chuchiru: They're not speaking to each other right now.  
  
Morgan: (gets big shiny eyes) Eep-- (gushes tears)  
  
Chuchiru: Bwahahahaha!  
  
Morgan: You mock my agony? Eat pain, otaku fanboy! (hits Chuchiru with giant fish)  
  
Chuchiru: (from floor) I am confused--  
  
Morgan: Good!  
  
* * *  
  
Ashnod slipped into the room that had the number specified by his schedule, trying to maintain as much dignity as possible. No one else was inside, so he plopped down in the nearest seat angrily, letting out a sigh as he threw his books on the paint-stained table. At least he got to start off the day with art.  
  
"It's hard the first day, sometimes," said a voice from behind him. Ash whirled reflexively, skipping his chair around in a circle.  
  
"Whoa, take it easy!" The man was tall and had bulky shoulders, with big hands and a youthful face, dressed in rather casual clothes. He couldn't have been more than thirty, and he looked cheerfully at the tiefling. "Jumpy at our new school, huh?"  
  
"How did you know?" Ash replied. His tail flicked nervously.  
  
"Well, I've never seen you here before, and I think I'd remember someone like you for sure." There was no insult in his words, just a friendly invitation to talk. He had laughing brown eyes and matching hair, which was interrupted only by a small bald spot at the back of his crown.  
  
"Yeah, I-- We just moved here a couple of weeks ago."  
  
"Oh? Where're you from?"  
  
Ash shrugged. "Luskan."  
  
"That's a long way off. You go to the wizards' academy up there, then?"  
  
"The Hosttower of the Arcane? Yeah, but-- Well, they couldn't teach me much."  
  
"Oh, really? Regular little genius, then, eh?" The man put his hands on his hips, inserting a teasing tone into his words.  
  
Ash flushed slightly, not deigning to mention that he was, in fact, probably more intelligent than everyone at this school put together. It was a simple fact, but he didn't like to discuss it because it seemed like bragging. "Er, actually, it wasn't them so much as it was me." He liked this man, who he already assumed to be the art teacher, and wanted to be as friendly as possible; however, spilling his guts about his past was a bit awkward when he was talking to someone he didn't even know.  
  
The man almost seemed to read his mind. "Oh, yeah, I'm sorry!" he said, smacking his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Name's Kelvin, Kelvin Griffinheart. I'm the art teacher here at Waterdeep High." He wiped his hand on his dungarees and held it out to the boy.  
  
Ash took it, shaking uncertainly. "I'm Ashnod Darkling; but everyone calls me Ash." *When they call me something civilized,* he added mentally.  
  
"Well, pleased to meet you, Ash. I hope you like art--I try to run a fun classroom, but I don't tolerate troublemakers. Not that you strike me as a troublemaker!" He added the last bit hastily. "I just want to lay down the rules. You'll have a few required projects, but most of your time will be your own to do whatever you want with. Something physical, though--save your music and your poetry and stuff for literature class."  
  
"I don't do that much writing," Ash lied, embarrassed as he though of his own poetry at home.  
  
"Maybe not, but if you can work clay with that tail, you'll be a star student in here." Kelvin rapped his knuckles on the table enthusiastically. "So," he said, seating himself in another chair and wrenching the conversation back around, "what were you saying about Luskan?"  
  
"Oh," Ash answered, confused momentarily, "there weren't any skills I could learn there that really make that much difference. I'm not, um, really a mage." He bit his lower lip slightly, showing his vampire-like fangs.  
  
"S'too bad. We don't have that many magic-users in this school, for some reason. At least, not in the last four or five years. We have some kids in the primary facility downtown who show some aptitude for the arcane, but there are only about eight high-schoolers in any of the magic classes here. Eight of our eleven wizardry instructors are on sabbatical because they're not needed. The only ones left are the evocation instructor, the abjuration master, and Mistress Enalia, the sorceress."  
  
"You--you have a professor of sorcery?"  
  
"Of course! Didn't Luskan?"  
  
"No," Ash replied. "That's why I left."  
  
"Ah," Kelvin said, understanding. "Now I see. Well, you'd better make sure that you have Enalia's class, then. She's really good at her job, I've heard, although I'm no spellcaster, so I wouldn't know good magic from bad."  
  
The young tiefling extracted his class list from the jumble of textbooks he'd tossed onto the table earlier. Art, advanced alchemy, higher mathematics, arcane history, concert band and choir, theological identification, and gym. "Great," he muttered, passing the slip of paper to Kelvin. "She's not on there."  
  
"Don't worry," the art instructor smiled, standing up with the paper. "Here, just a second." He went to his desk, opened a drawer, and removed a thin pamphlet, which he thumbed through quickly. Marking a page with the class list, he brought it over to Ash. "This is a full listing of all available classes. Just change out the ones you want, and I'll turn it into the office for you. They make mistakes all the time, so they won't think anything about altering your schedule--especially not on the first day, when almost everyone will be doing the same thing." He handed the tiefling his prize, just as the bell sounded to begin the first class. "Oh! Well, we'll talk more later. I'm in and out of the room all period, too, so if you finish changing that around before the class's over, we can have you in a completely different class before second period even starts." With another friendly smile, he bustled outside into the hall.  
  
Ash boggled. The art teacher had shown no interest whatsoever in his differences--he had befriended him almost immediately. The boy couldn't believe his extraordinary luck after pessimistically expecting his usual lot. He opened the booklet as other pupils began to file in and glanced over the list of classes. He'd already taken advanced alchemy and higher mathematics, both. He crossed them out. Arcane history held no interest whatsoever--he'd had the same class twice under a different name at the Hosttower. Gym? Right. Because of what he was--because of the ancient dragon blood that ran in his veins and made him a sorcerer--he had no need of physical diversions. The slightest bit of exercise or exertion on a daily basis was enough to keep him in perfect shape, which was why he made a point of practicing his swordplay every afternoon.  
  
Theological identification was also out. He knew the names of all the gods and goddesses on Abeir-Toril, and the names of entire pantheons that had nothing to do with their Plane of existence, as well as where all of them went and who did what. He wasn't studying to be some celibate, silent monk or stuffy cleric somewhere. That left art and band/choir. He scanned the list again, then once more, finally jotting down replacement classes in the proper order. He would have art, evocation, abjuration, magical engineering, concert band and choir, theatre, and then finish the day with theories and applications of sorcery.  
  
He rose and trudged up to Kelvin's desk, ignoring the other art students, who were settling into their chairs, and laid the pamphlet and his class list in plain view. The art teacher would take it from there, he supposed, as he walked back to his table. When he got there, though, he found it occupied by three young human boys. Two of them sat on one side, facing the third, and all were chatting excitedly.  
  
Purposefully as well as apprehensively, Ash walked back to his place, and sat down, clearing his throat. The three boys stopped talking to watch the tiefling, and there was a long, uncomfortable silence at the table. Then the young man directly across from Ashnod offered his hand with a smile.  
  
"Hey," he said, "my name's Casanith."  
  
Ash shook the proffered hand, feeling a little more at ease. "Ashnod."  
  
"You're not from around here, are you?" said the one next to Ash. "I'm Kendrick, by the way." He, too, clasped hands with the tiefling, a bit hesitantly at first, but it felt as though that stemmed more from natural shyness rather than revulsion or fear.  
  
"No, I'm from Luskan."  
  
"I've always wanted to go to Luskan," said the third member of the group, enthusiastically. "I've heard that it's so awesome!" Casanith punched him in the shoulder. "Oh, yeah. I'm J'soon."  
  
Ash studied all of them. Casanith was shorter than the others, not much more than five inches over five feet, he thought--half a foot under his own height. He had shoulder-length chestnut hair, hazel eyes, and a bronze complexion. Kendrick was an inch or two taller than Ash, with short, fluffy black hair and eyes that were brown behind their round glasses. He was also a tad more heavyset than his companions, although not much so. J'soon was the same height as Kendrick, but lanky and pale, with blue-gray eyes and reddish-brown hair that was waxed up in a mess of short spikes and whorls.  
  
"So--" the planetouched boy said slowly, "you guys are friends?"  
  
"Yeah," J'soon answered cheerfully. "Since all the way back in primary. I'm a year ahead of these guys, but we still manage to have most of the same classes."  
  
"What about you?" asked Kendrick. "Do you know anyone here yet?"  
  
"Just the art teacher," Ash replied with a shrug.  
  
"Well, maybe we can show you around, then," Casanith suggested. "We always have an empty spot at our lunch table every year, anyway. We can get to know each other a little better."  
  
Ash was amazed, and offered a silent but fervent thank-you to Tymora, in case she was his benefactor. Whoever it was, he was beginning to have some serious thoughts about converting religions. "Sounds great!" He smiled fangily.  
  
"Fine, then. Oh--here's Kelvin."  
  
The art professor entered the room, closing the door behind him, and walked to the front, winking at Ash as he passed. "Most of you know me, or have even had me before," he said as he turned at his desk. "For those of you who haven't, I'm Kelvin. I think you know what to do in art class, so for today, my only requirement is that your working material be clay. Pinch something out--don't use any tools to help you. I want to get an idea of your creative ability in here." He spotted Ash's class list and picked it up. "I'm going to make a short run to the office, and when I come back, we'll get started."  
  
*Maybe,* Ash thought, *this won't be as bad as I thought.* 


	3. Second Period

Chuchiru: --  
  
Morgan: What?  
  
Chuchiru: They're looking at you--  
  
Morgan: Who?  
  
Chuchiru: Them.  
  
Morgan: --Riiiiight--  
  
Chuchiru: The readers-- They're out there--  
  
Morgan: --Well, yeah, they are.  
  
Chuchiru: Staring--  
  
Morgan: Um-- Yeah. Anyway, here's the third chapter. I had plenty of time to think it through, and I'm definitely going to finish this story even if there's no actual fanbase for it. However, I'd love some reader feedback, of course.  
  
Chuchiru: Read and review, please!  
  
Morgan: I want Ash to have a romance in the story, but I don't know with who. Certainly one of the characters I've introduced in these first chapters, here, but I can't decide which one. Read this installment, where I'll introduce the rest (save one or two, who'll show up in the next two or three chapters) of the major storyline characters, then e-mail me or tell me in a review who you'd like Ash to hook up with. Whoever it is, they'll be together forever, though, so make sure you say your piece if you have an opinion; I don't care who it is, but I need your help.  
  
Chuchiru: So post your review now!  
  
* * *  
  
Ashnod decided after a few minutes that he could definitely learn to like this new school if all the teachers were anything like Kelvin. Art was already better than any of the classes he had been in back at Luskan, with no restrictions on his creativity and plenty of material to go around. The other three boys at his table passed the time exchanging school stories with him, filling him in on the layout of the facility and the personalities of the faculty, as they laboriously crafted their own sculptures. There was obviously some concentrated talent amongst them, since easily discernable shapes immediately began to emerge from the grayish clay.  
  
Casanith was pulling a tree out of his lump of material, hollowing out the trunk and adding such embellishments as a skull and slightly bloated crow on one branch. It had far to go, but promised to be interesting in the end.  
  
Kendrick was smoothing out a face; whose was not apparent, although the structure seemed elvish at first. As it progressed, the form of a young woman became visible, with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose; a goddess or nymph, perhaps. The clay seemed to shift naturally under the dark-haired boy's fingers, although when complimented on it, he acted shy and deprecating of his own work, protesting his talentlessness.  
  
J'soon chose to pinch out a pot, smoothing its edges carefully and punching out designs here and there to make it more attractive to the eye. He tossed over the idea of filling it with clay grapes and oranges, but decided against it in favor of adding more designs to the outside with his fingernails.  
  
Ash was definitely the most into the project. With his slender fingers, he quickly had a basic shape going--a tall cone with a disc balanced on its edge at the peak. With a flick of his fingers, and to the amazed stares of the others, he unsheathed long, sharp talons from beneath his fingernails, using them to carve details into the model. He even brought his tail up under one arm to assist him, shaping and defining with the barb at the end of the prehensile appendage. In ten minutes, the shape was recognizable. In thirty, it was definite.  
  
"That's Sigil, isn't it?" Casanith whispered. He had finished his own sculpture some time ago, and had been watching Ashnod ever since. "The City of Doors in the Outlands."  
  
"You know about it?" the tiefling asked with mild surprise. "I thought that only the mage academies taught extraplanar geography and such."  
  
"They don't have a class like that here, but I've read about it, and I've seen pictures on the astralnet. I wouldn't mind seeing other Planes, but I guess you kind of have to get off the Prime first." Casanith peered in wonder at the hollow wheel of Sigil on its clay Spire.  
  
"That is amazing," Kelvin said, coming up behind Ash's chair. "You're really good, you know that? You'll fit right in with these guys here--they all have quite a bit of talent themselves. Some of them tend more toward laziness than art when it comes to specialization, though." The art teacher cocked a reproving eyebrow at Casanith and J'soon over Ashnod's shoulder.  
  
"I work," the older boy protested with a grin.  
  
"Sometimes," Kelvin agreed grudgingly. "Once in a while he comes up with something that's almost worth waiting for, too."  
  
A bell sounded in the hall outside. "That's it, kids," Kelvin announced, clapping his hands together. "Leave everything on the table. I want to have a look at your work. Don't worry, we'll go over cleanup procedures tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your first day, if you can." He waved them toward the door.  
  
"Where do I go next, Kelvin?" Ash asked as he rose, leaving his fragile-seeming miniature Sigil on the table and gathering his books.  
  
"Evocation, I believe, wasn't it?" the art teacher replied with a smile.  
  
"Thanks a lot."  
  
"Don't worry about it. I have a feeling we're going to get along fine, so best to start out well, huh?" He jerked his head toward the door. "Get outta here, you four. See you later."  
  
The boys stayed together as they walked down the hall toward their next classes. "What've you got next, Ash?" J'soon asked, shifting his pack.  
  
"Evocation."  
  
"Great," Kendrick chirped. "You'll be in there with me. I've got evocation right before abjuration."  
  
"I've got abjuration with you, too, then!" Ash effervesced. "What do you guys have?"  
  
"Alchemy," J'soon sighed morbidly.  
  
"Dwarvish," Casanith said just as disgustedly. "You gotta have at least one foreign language before you can graduate, and I don't want to have one my senior year unless I can get elvish."  
  
"Well," Kendrick said, stopping in front of the evocation room doorway with Ash, "guess we'll see you guys at lunch, then." He pushed the tiefling on into the room.  
  
The boys took two seats in the front row of desks, side by side, as others began filtering into the room. Two of the walls were covered with hanging diagrams depicting mages in fashionably dramatic poses, detailed positions for hands and fingers, and various symbols and formulae. The third wall was a line of windows, their shades pulled up to reveal the front lawn of the building; apparently the classroom was on the outside edge of the facility, unlike the art room, which was stuffed on the other side of the hall, windowless. Truthfully, Ash preferred the art chamber--he was dreadfully sensitive to sunlight, and made sure he was well away from the windows. The final wall, where all the desks were facing, was a blackboard hung behind a monumental desk. There was no teacher in sight.  
  
"Hey, Brenna!" Kendrick greeted another student with sudden exuberance. The girl, who was just entering the room, spotted him and came over with a smile.  
  
"Ash, this is Brenna la Faye," the dark-haired boy introduced her. She was fairly tall for a girl, with long, dark brown hair and smiling brown eyes like Kendrick's. She was dressed in a pair of baggy jeans, a tie- die shirt, and sandals, carrying a purse under one arm and a pair of books under the other.  
  
"Nice to meet you," Brenna said, shaking the hand Ash extended dubiously.  
  
"Er, same here," the tiefling responded.  
  
"Brenna's one of our little group, or whatever," Kendrick explained. "We've been friends for a few years now. Our type of people tend to stick together, kind of, since there's fewer of us than of all the other social groups; she's okay."  
  
"Our type of people?" the newcomer repeated, raising an eyebrow.  
  
"Yeah, you know, the smart ones who don't do drugs, don't wear designer clothes, aren't on any sports teams, and accept everyone else."  
  
"And who are put down and picked on because of it," Brenna added. "But we're not bitter about it. Most of the time. So, you're Ash, huh? New guy?"  
  
"I just moved here from Luskan."  
  
"There's not a lot of planetouched on Toril, are there? It's kinda neat to meet one." She suddenly let out a squeal of delight. "Is that tail for real?"  
  
"Well, yeah," Ash replied. He wanted to be annoyed with her remark, but couldn't bring himself to grow irritated. Here was a person who thought his oddities were actually cool; he didn't want to drive her off.  
  
"That is so great," she said, sliding into the seat on Kendrick's other side. "I've never met anyone with a tail before. That barb looks dangerous though."  
  
"Venomous," he informed her deprecatingly. "So are the teeth and stuff. I have to be careful, sometimes, 'cause it's prehensile, but it twitches by itself if I don't pay attention."  
  
"Teeth and stuff?"  
  
"He has claws, too," Kendrick put in. "He used them in art; real handy."  
  
The bell rang, and the last few stragglers in the hallway dashed into their classrooms. Ash noticed with some surprise that they were the only three people in the room.  
  
A man entered, presumably the instructor, shutting the door behind him. He was tall, but bent slightly with age, and had a long gray beard and imposing, bushy eyebrows. His head bore no bald spot, but his steel-colored hair was cut short, and his eyes were piercing and of the same hue. He wore businesslike dress clothing under his red robe.  
  
Moving to his desk, he glanced at the list of names that lay there, then up at his pupils with some annoyance. "That's it? Just you three?" His voice was rough and gravelly, stern like the rest of him.  
  
"I guess," Kendrick shrugged, looking around.  
  
The teacher sighed. "Blast and bebother this festering metropolis!" he spat, shaking his fist at the tiny part of the city of Waterdeep that was visible across the street that bordered the school's front lawn. He marched over to the windows and pulled down the shades, covering the offensive view. "I'm not here to waste my time with a handful of boisterous nixies; there ought to be at least twenty in this class to even justify my presence in this building at seven o'clock every weekday morning." He strode back to his massive wooden desk and plopped ungracefully in his chair. "Do you know what I had for breakfast this morning?" he asked, directing the question at Brenna.  
  
"Er, ah, no?" she ventured, taken somewhat aback.  
  
"Nothing!" he shrieked triumphantly, as though he had just scored a colossal point. "Not a blasted thing!" He got a grip on himself with some embarrassment, leaning back in his seat and venting a sigh. "Well, it can't be helped, I suppose. It's not your fault, is it? You're in here to learn, and I'm in here to teach, so let's get cracking."  
  
He stood, seeming to notice Ash for the first time. "Oho, a tiefling this year, is it? Maybe we'll have an interesting time of it, after all. You have to be new here, or I'd know about you! What's your name, boy?"  
  
"Ashnod, sir," the student replied, somewhat fearfully.  
  
"Appropriate, I'd say. You have a tanar'rian aura about you. Well, I can't say how pleased I am to meet you--and you two, too, if you're friends with him. You've made my year! I've only had a planetouched student once before, an aasimon girl about thirty years ago. I enjoyed teaching her, and always wanted a tiefling in class to see what it would be like. My career doesn't allow me to go planehopping and find out." He came over and extended his hand. "I'm Zander Orpheus Cain," he declared. Ash took his hand and shook it firmly.  
  
The man examined his hand. "Rather a bit below freezing, aren't you, my boy? I guess I'd better start with that. Being a tiefling, is there anything I need to know before we start hurling spells about? Special attributes and such? Besides the tail with which you are so dexterously scratching your back."  
  
"It should be in my medical records, sir," Ash told him. "Ah, fangs, prehensile tail with barb, and retractable claws--all venomous. Then, night vision, surface climbing, unlimited teleportation within visual range, and energy channeling through touch. Oh, and my body temperature, sir."  
  
Professor Cain raised his eyebrows nearly to his hairline as Ash ticked these off on his fingers, a reaction imitated by Kendrick and Brenna, who exchanged a long look. "Body temperature--you mean you're just cold?"  
  
"Ah, very cold, sir. I'm supersensitive to sunlight because I overheat very easily when exposed to any source of heat, but cold doesn't bother me at all."  
  
The teacher looked him up and down narrowly. "You're in much too good a shape to not work out for it. If you overheat, how do you do that?"  
  
Ash blushed a little. "It's because I have dragon blood in me, sir. Silver dragon--that's why cold doesn't affect me, and just a little exercise keeps me in shape. Too much over a long period will burn me out, though--after about an hour of running or whatever I get a nosebleed, a migraine, and pass out. It can kill me if I push."  
  
"Well, don't worry about it in here. We'll be careful with fire spells and keep you away from the windows in the summer, and you should be fine. Let me know if I need to cool it down, though, all right? You two, too. You have to be comfortable to learn, I always say." Something seemed to dawn on the man. "Did you say--silver dragon blood?"  
  
"Yes, Mister Cain, sir. I'm a sorcerer. That's why I withdrew from the Hosttower at Luskan."  
  
Cain's squinted. "Prove it."  
  
Ash looked startled, but obediently glanced toward the blackboard. A shimmer in the air coalesced into a crystalline blade of bluish ice, hovering in front of his face at eye level. He narrowed his eyes as the other three in the room widened theirs, and the conjured shard streaked through the air to shatter on the spell-protected surface. A wide ring of frost marked the point of impact.  
  
He turned back to Cain, and with no word or even gesture but the opening of his raised hand, summoned a crackling black globe of energy, which rested lightly on his palm like a spherical window into nothingness. "How's that?"  
  
"Impressive," Cain grinned. "It looks like you've got a good start. Even though this class is for magi, I can still show you a few tricks that will be helpful, though. Perhaps this class will turn out better than I thought it would." 


	4. What Is This Stuff?

Morgan: I have no witty comments for you this time, I'm afraid. I've run out.  
  
Chuchiru: That's not true!  
  
Morgan: You really think so?  
  
Chuchiru: Yeah! You should be a stand-up comedian!  
  
Morgan: You mean it?  
  
Chuchiru: Yeah! After all, every time you stand up, people laugh at you. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  
  
Morgan: (eyes glow green, levitates off floor in a cloud of darkness) I am gonna kill you so much.  
  
Chuchiru: AIEEEEEEEE!!!  
  
* * *  
  
Evocation class definitely turned out to be better than Ash had begun to expect from Cain's initial outburst. The man, though gruff and stern, had a dry sense of humor and a mind like a scalpel. He was interested in Ash's "condition," but didn't treat him like a specimen floating in a jar. Instead, he was considerate, thorough, and above all, an excellent teacher. Ash left for abjuration class with a growing affection for his new school.  
  
Kendrick and Brenna, however, both warned him not to expect much out of the next professor. The pair were both scheduled to have the class with him, as well as the next one after that, and filled him in rapidly on what they knew of the reticent woman as the trudged up the stairs to her room on the second floor.  
  
"She's rigid and arrogant," Kendrick informed the tiefling, "and really not very nice, from what I've heard. Neither of us have had her, and you don't even pass her that much in the hallway, but nobody seems to get along with her."  
  
"She's a real witch," Brenna commented.  
  
"Obviously; she's teaching an abjuration class."  
  
"No, I mean she's a bitter old hag, you silly!"  
  
"Oh."  
  
The classroom was stuffy and stale, and there were only five students including the three friends. Although he'd only known them for an hour or two, Ash had to consider them friends; otherwise, he'd slip into a state of lonely depression.  
  
The professor of abjuration, one Mistress Minerva Ferrin, was indeed a bitter old hag. She did not bother to greet each of her pupils individually, nor did she deign to outline a curriculum for her class. She simply ordered, in her grating, condescending voice, that they would follow the rules she had posted throughout the room while they were in her class, and that they should take out a piece of paper and begin working on the assignment on the board.  
  
Ash was glad to leave when the bell rang. He had known better than to think that he would like all his classes and instructors, but he had made a number of acquaintances so quickly and liked both of his previous teachers so much that he couldn't help feeling disappointed with Minerva Ferrin.  
  
Fourth period was magical engineering, in a room at the back of the school that was large, open, and lined with layers of magic-absorbent metal to prevent any loss of life from sudden explosions. The teacher was a short, fat, jolly man called Girbeld Alpenssun--or so Ash thought at first. He noticed, however, when the man removed his outer robe to demonstrate the various ways of forging a foot-piece for a wizard's staff, that the bare arms protruding from the sleeveless vest he wore underneath were not fat at all. Rather, they were huge masses of muscle that seemed quite capable of rending an oak tree from the ground. In addition, his massive black beard was almost hypnotic: It had a personality all to itself. It bristled when he reprimanded a student, waggled when he spoke, and tangled when he worked as though in protest. It was like listening to an ambulatory shrub giving the lecture.  
  
Between fourth and fifth periods was a half-hour for lunch. Kendrick and Brenna led Ash down a back hallway that sloped from the rear end of the second floor behind the first, which explained why all the rooms on that side had no windows--the building was on top of, behind, and around them on all sides.  
  
Ash wasn't interested in sampling what appeared to be a badly prepared meat course of some sort, school food being what it was the world over, and looked around for an empty table. He spotted J'soon, who, apparently, had also decided to skip the food, and who was beckoning to him from a corner. He made his way over, taking one of the many empty chairs around the circumference of their table.  
  
"What is that stuff?" Ash muttered, glancing at a huge, stern-looking half-orc lunchlady.  
  
"I don't even want to think about it," the older boy said with a shudder. "How are your classes so far?"  
  
"Fine, except for abjuration. That Mistress Ferrin is a real witch."  
  
"Of course," J'soon replied slowly. "Otherwise she wouldn't be in charge of a magic class, would she?"  
  
Ash chose not to answer that. "Here come the others," he said instead, waving to them.  
  
Kendrick and Brenna, followed closely by Casanith and another girl, who was tall and dressed in black to match her long hair, navigated the maze of loose chairs and students to reach the table. "What is this stuff?" Brenna asked them all sickly, looking at her plate.  
  
Ash and J'soon exchanged a long look. "Don't bring it up," the human told her, shaking his head. "Hey Sara; how's it going?"  
  
The new girl sat down between Kendrick and Casanith. "Fine so far, except that I've got that boring theology class first thing. I'm going to change it so I'll have art with you guys, I think. Who's the new kid?" She gave Ash an appraising look.  
  
"I'm Ashnod," he greeted her with more confidence than he had displayed earlier. "But you can just call me Ash."  
  
"Well, I'm Sara," she informed him, "but you can just call me Sara. You definitely don't look like you're from anywhere in Waterdeep, no offense."  
  
"None taken," the boy said easily, leaning back in his chair. "I'm a tiefling, that's all. From up around Luskan."  
  
"Of course," Sara sighed sardonically, "since you guys seem to have made friends with this kid, he's got to be the only interesting or decent person north of Neverwinter. Luskan's a hard place, or so I've been told."  
  
"Only out in the countryside. The cities are just like other cities: loud, noisy, and loud."  
  
Sara chuckled and pointed at him with her fork. "I think we'll get on just fine. What class have you got next?"  
  
"Concert band and choir."  
  
"Had a feeling. Me, Casanith here, and J'soon all have that fifth period, so I'll get a chance to switch 'I-hate-my-life-stories' with you. You look like a goth to me, so we should probably feel about the same, I guess."  
  
Ash rolled his eyes. "You have no idea."  
  
"See?" The bell interrupted whatever she was going to say next, though, and she rose abruptly. "See you in class, then, Ash. Jay can show you where it is." She jerked a thumb at J'soon, and followed Casanith toward the plate drop-off window at the other end of the cafeteria.  
  
"So," she murmured to the shorter boy as they walked, "did you get a load of that? I love that shirt, even if those abs are the color of wax in a white candle. And did you see those muscles? He's like a tiger or something, all smooth and slim, man." She nudged Casanith. "Eh? Eh?"  
  
Casanith rolled his eyes, thinking of his own skinny frame. "Yes, I saw--a lot more than I wanted to see, but I don't complain about a person's clothes. If he wants to wear that little piece of transparent gauze and call it a shirt, even though it shows everything there is to see, then fine. I don't have to look."  
  
"But why wouldn't you want to?" Sara whined, dumping her leftovers into the trash bin and tossing her plate to the lunchlady. "Did you see those pecs?"  
  
"I think everyone did, Sara." Casanith grinned wickedly. "His tail's prehensile, you know."  
  
Her eyes glazed over. "Well, now. Well, well, well." She pondered a moment. "I wonder if he's got any pants to match that shirt."  
  
Casanith sighed, pushing the unwanted image from his mind, and shoved Sara in the direction of the band room. 


	5. And To Abruptly Cut Off Our Day

Morgan: After reading this, don't panic. The new characters introduced here will appear more as the story advances, and the next chapter will include the details of Ash's house, his father, more Toril technology, and a visit from the final main character. I meant to put this up yesterday, but I didn't do it from my own computer, and wouldn't you know it, the disk I had it on had to glitch out on me.  
  
Chuchiru: (grins)  
  
Morgan: If I didn't know better, I'd say somebody had tampered with it.  
  
Chuchiru: (looks away)  
  
Morgan: Anyway, I'm starting to get reviews now! While I intended to post my story in any case, it's wonderful to have people who actually read it. In fact, I'm actually on some peoples' favorites list! I--I think I'll cry now.  
  
Chuchiru: Curses! Foiled by the bond between true D&D fanatics!  
  
Morgan: Don't insult my fanbase! (pulls something out of pocket, puts on hand) You know the Goa'uld from Stargate?  
  
Chuchiru: Sure, great show!  
  
Morgan: You know their hand devices? The offensive ones, not the healing or x-ray ones.  
  
Chuchiru: Yeah, why?  
  
Morgan: I redesigned one. (starts blasting) Dance, otaku fanboy!  
  
Chuchiru: Meep!  
  
Morgan: Wahahahaha!  
  
* * *  
  
The music room was a wonderfully large auditorium, with a central stage that could be collapsed and removed and a larger stage in the amphitheater at one end. The middle elevation was currently in use by the assembling music class, taking advantage of the superior acoustics in the hall.  
  
"Why did you take this, anyway?" J'soon asked Ash as they made their way to the stage. Kendrick and Brenna had veered off to another class, and neither Casanith nor Sara had caught up with them yet.  
  
"I play an instrument," the tiefling replied, his doubt settling in once more. He was afraid that if his skill did not match that of those students already present, this period would be worse than abjuration.  
  
"Which one?"  
  
"The drums."  
  
"Wow! That's really difficult to get good at. I play the powered six- string lute, myself, and a little bit of sitar, but I'm not very good at that. Do you have your own instrument?" They were mounting the stairs to take their seats on the dais now.  
  
"Yes, but it's at home. Should I get it or something?"  
  
J'soon shook his head. "Nah. Aïúwên'll let you use one from the lockers today, but bring it from now on or he'll break bad on you."  
  
They dumped their books and things behind their seats and made themselves as comfortable as was possible in the slant-bottomed band chairs. Casanith and Sara made it inside just as the invisible, and probably magical, bell that announced the beginning of class was sounded. As the other two took their places beside Ash and his older companion, a tall, slender figure emerged from a side door at the end of the auditorium opposite the interior entrance. When he strode onto the stage, Ash took in his upswept, lobeless ears, slanted silver eyes, and high cheekbones; there was an elf teaching music class!  
  
"Well," the man said in a clipped, high tenor, "welcome back to another year of this wonderful class we call 'music.' I'm glad to see so many returning players and singers this school year; often I have students who drop the class because they can't keep up or don't have the skill they thought they did. Today, since you're all veterans, we'll hit the ground running with the first passage of Kylie Rivertongue's 'Ode to A Lonesome God.' I'm sure by now you've spotted the music books on the stands in front of you--"  
  
"Um, sir," Casanith put his hand up for attention, "respectfully, sir, we do have one new student this year." He pointed at Ash as the tiefling grimaced and tried to fade away into the background.  
  
"Oh, really?" Aïúwên turned an indifferent eyebrow on the cowering planetouched boy. "Oh. A tiefling." He shrugged, uncaring. "As long as he keeps up--"  
  
"He ought to keep up with the fact that we don't like freaks like him here," said a student from the row in front of Ash.  
  
"Yeah, isn't that the weirdo from this morning?" said another. "The one with the freak tail?"  
  
The teacher was not amused. "Quiet, you blathering numbskulls. You've no right to disrespect your peers, especially when you don't even know them. He must be new here, as we haven't had a tiefling in the last two hundred years I've been teaching here, so treat him courteously, if not kindly."  
  
Chastened, the first speaker stuttered, "But--you didn't respect him!"  
  
"Of course not," Aïúwên snorted disgustedly. "I don't like planetouched, and I doubt that he has any natural talent for music; but, if he can impress me with his playing--or his singing--I don't care what he looks like, how he dresses, or--" He glanced at the outspoken boy. "--how badly he smells."  
  
The other students laughed nervously, but none of them deigned to look at Ash or to grant him a gesture of encouragement. The tiefling curled up even further, wrapping his barbed tail around his ankles like a cat as he withdrew into silence. Casanith and the others patted him on the back and spoke reassuringly, but his isolation, it seemed, would not be prolonged.  
  
"What instrument do you play, planetouched?" Aïúwên asked primly.  
  
"Drums," Ash said in a low voice, not looking at the instructor.  
  
"This is the concert band. We don't use drums. Do you play anything else? A string or woodwind?"  
  
"I play four instruments," Ashnod replied bitterly, sitting up. "One of them well, and the others less well. Drums, powered harp, violin, and piano, in that order."  
  
"Well, then, I think we'll set you up with a violin today," the elven professor said abruptly. He stepped off the stage, made his way back to his office or whatever near the amphitheater, and came back shortly bearing a violin of dark wood and a matching bow. These he tossed to Ash negligently, putting doubt in the tiefling as to the actual value of the instrument. "There. Impress me."  
  
"This is out of tune," Ash criticized, pulling the bow over the strings and giving life to a horrible screech.  
  
"Tune it. The rest of you, get out your instruments, turn to page sixteen of your music books, and begin the piece. Mister Tiefling, you may join in when ready."  
  
As his friends on either side of him began playing, Ash focused on the violin. He twisted its pegs carefully, testing it once or twice on quiet notes until he was sure he had it right. When he looked up, the teacher was ignoring the students altogether, studying a book of music and making notes on its pages at his podium in the front. With a sour expression, he counted down the lines on his paper and set bow to string in the second stanza.  
  
He may not have been a master bard, but he was fairly good for his age and for the amount of time he had had to practice the instrument. The sound of its music was rich and perfectly in tune with the rest of the players, and he became so caught up in it that he failed to notice Aïúwên's outstretched hand silencing the others, beginning to add little flourishes and skips to the languid, heartbreaking song. Only when he ended the piece, exhaling slowly and opening his eyes once more, did he hear the sound of Aïúwên's pleased snort.  
  
"Not bad, Mister Tiefling," the elf said grudgingly. "But tomorrow, we'll find out if you can sing. Can you?"  
  
"I've never really tried," Ash admitted with a shrug, conscious of the other students' whispering and hooded glances. "Maybe with the phonode¹ sometimes in the skimmer², and in the shower, I guess." From two seats over, Sara heaved a huge sigh, and Casanith rolled his eyes.  
  
"Can't you just picture him in the shower?" the black-haired girl whispered to the shorter boy. "Wet hair, water running down those muscles, completely naked--"  
  
Uncomfortably enough, Casanith found that he could.  
  
* * *  
  
Theatre was a drag for everyone. Kendrick and Brenna rejoined Casanith and Ash for the next class, leaving J'soon and Sara to go their separate ways. It started off slowly, with the teacher, one Miss Yago, bleating off a list of the productions she hoped to do by the end of the year. She passed out textbooks containing the scripts for classic plays, admonished them to study up, and promised them it would get more exciting as it went along.  
  
At least this time, the students left the class with relief rather than regret.  
  
Sorcery finished the day for Ash. He was both puzzled and, in some way, glad to discover that he was Mistress Enalia's only student. The woman was tall and beautiful, with long, curly blond hair, a devastating array of dimples, and a ready laugh. Her blue eyes danced with delight when she saw someone in her class.  
  
"What sort of magic are we talking about, here?" she asked lightly after they had introduced themselves to each other. She settled in the desk next to Ash, throwing a companionable arm around his shoulders, seemingly unbothered by the freezing temperature there.  
  
"I've never had a sorcery instructor, and it's too dangerous to practice at home because I don't really know what I can do. All I can say for sure is that the powers I've discovered so far seem to lie mainly in the realm of ice and shadow magic."  
  
"Probably your demonic heritage adds the shadow influence," Enalia hypothesized, "and your dragon ancestry determines the other abilities. Tell me, do you know what dragon mixed with your family, back in their roots?"  
  
Ash shook his head. "Silver, I think."  
  
Enalia thought for a second, then decided, "It must be. It would have to be either white or silver, and it's probably the latter, I'd say, since you also seem to have certain other silver qualities."  
  
"Silver qualities?" Ashnod was definitely intrigued by that.  
  
"Well, if it had been white, you'd have more of an aggressive, mean attitude. You'd also be far less intelligent than you seem to be. Silvers are highly intelligent, quiet, thoughtful, kind, and inherently good--even if a little chaos gets mixed in with them, like your tanar'ri heritage."  
  
Ash rocked back in his seat. "How can you know what kind of--"  
  
The human woman laughed. "It's written all over you. Besides, the way you act is also influenced by what sort of demonic energies altered your birth. Caina in the Plane of Baator would be a likely shot, based on the cold and dark theory, except that your far too quick-thinking and emotional to have anything but tanar'ri in you. The five-hundredth and seventy-eighth layer, I'd wager. It's colder and darker there than anywhere on Caina, except for the Icedark fields."  
  
Ash decided he would greatly enjoy this class.  
  
* * *  
  
When school ended and the final bell sounded, Ash caught his newfound friends in the hall on the way to their transport skimmers for a quick goodbye. He felt like he already knew all of them well, and was glad to have met them so soon.  
  
His father was waiting in their high-class silver skimmer outside to pick him up. On the way home, they discussed their days with each other; Zander Mordreve Darkling was especially glad to hear of Ash's new friends. The trip to the suburbs went too quickly to fill in all the details, though, and Ash decided to allow his father a break from conversation and a chance to rest from work before finishing up.  
  
Upon arriving at his new Waterdeep home, he left his father to continue unpacking, went straight to his room, threw his books on the bed, and followed a sudden urge to hop right in the shower. He used his tail to soap himself, freeing his hands to work through his hair, and as he stood there, hair wet, water running down his muscles, completely naked--he sang the words to the first part of "Ode to A Lonesome God."  
  
¹ The phonode is the Faerûn equivalent of the radio. ² Skimmers are exactly like automobiles in every way, except that they hover a few inches off the ground rather than resting on wheels. They are powered by enchanted crystals and use magic for propulsion. 


	6. Guardian Angel

Morgan: And, here we go: the final main character has arrived! Wait until you get a load of this guy. Read about him. Wonder about him. Try and guess who he is. You'll find out, but refrain from reading ahead; it won't be nearly as good then.  
  
Chuchiru: He's almost as cool as I am!  
  
Mystery Character: Almost?  
  
Chuchiru: (gasps, prostrates self) I make-a all slave-face, great one!  
  
Mystery Character: That's more like it. Where's my tea?  
  
Morgan: ???  
  
* * *  
  
After he had dried and dressed in more casual clothing, he went to his bedroom and flopped on his massive bed. He enjoyed having the entire top floor to himself, although it was a bit bare, since they had yet to complete the unpacking. After a bit more than two weeks in the opulent house, some of the paintings and hangings were up on the whitewashed walls, and the shelves in the library were stuffed with the Darkling family's books, but that was everything they had gotten around to so far, save the furniture.  
  
The mansion in the Waterdhavian suburbs was four stories tall, with thirty-odd rooms. Ash privately felt that it was a bit ostentatious, but no more so than the other house that they still owned back in Luskan. Every wall, it seemed, was completely composed of plate-glass windows overlooking the ten-acre estate. There were lavatories, guest rooms, game rooms, a ball room, two dining halls, the huge library, a family room and den--even a sizeable office that his father had already laid claim to. His mother had fallen in love with the cavernous kitchen, immediately ordering her husband and son to pack her cooking things in there upon their arrival. Expensive but permanent cleaning spells kept the house in shape, and Aschakha Darkling loved to cook all sorts of foods from Mulhorandi sand ray to Sembian land crab. She was already perfectly at home in the new house.  
  
Ash's own room was the largest on the fourth floor, a huge round affair without a corner in sight; the center of the ceiling sported a skylight that he had already sourly shadowed with a spell, and he even had his own bathing chamber attached to the sleeping quarters. Since he got to do whatever he wanted with all the fourth-level rooms, he had hung his weapon collection of rare swords and various polearms and throwing blades around the circumference of the main room and placed his bed in the center. Pushed against one wall was his phonode system, its sound outlets lined up on either side from largest to smallest; on the other side, his oneiroplate¹ hung framed between a colossal bastard sword and a wicked- looking brandistock. As far as the other rooms, he had only converted four so far: One was his own library, crammed full of shelves and his own substantial hoard of literature. One he turned into his practice room, with his instruments set up at the four corners in separate stations and a heavy silence spell warding the door. The third was his workspace, with a desk for homework, a low table littered with textbooks and reference volumes, and his state-of-the-art machinode² setup, which he had already hooked up to the astralnet. His collection of 'node games rested here in a rack, ordered by genre, publisher, and replay value according to his own personal system.  
  
The fourth chamber was fairly bare compared to the others. It was his studio, which contained only three things, set up in a triangular formation on the white carpet that covered every floor in the house save lavatories, kitchen, and foyer. At one point was his small drawing desk with its matching stool, his styluses and paints tucked away inside along with canvas and paper. Straight across the room was his poetry stand, covered with loosely bound journals full of various forms of verse, from comical to tragic to deep to just plain weird. He treasured his work, and kept it in high regard as a form of art. The last object rested closer to the door and halfway between the other two, a podium whose interior was stacked with writings, and whose surface already held a blank sheet for the next time that the inspiration hit. Writing was his passion, his greatest talent.  
  
As Ashnod lay on his back, staring at the canopy of his black-draped four-poster bed, he felt a presence in the room with him and rolled quickly to one side. Sitting cross-legged in the air parallel to the surface of the bed was a man Ash had wondered whether he would ever see again after the move.  
  
"You followed us!" the young tiefling crowed, bouncing up into a sitting position and kicking his legs over the edge of the bed. His clawed toes barely touched the ground.  
  
"Of course," said the other diffidently, shrugging his pale shoulders. He appeared to be no older than twenty, with a height that surpassed Ash's by two or three inches when he stood. He was stunningly handsome, dressed in ebony Ffolk pants³ that reached from a low-cut waist to mid-calf, a loose, short-sleeved, black silk shirt that was unbuttoned and hung all the way open, and black designer leisure shoes. His waist- length black hair was caught in a tail at the nape of his neck, and there was a black leather wristband around each forearm. His skin was nearly as pale as Ashnod's, fitted on a lithely muscled form that would have sent a nymph into convulsions of ecstasy after a mere once-over glance. Black tattoos showed here and there--Tigerlike stripes around the right biceps, a flame-shaped pattern wrapped around the left wrist, and a lovely black rose that ran from the right elbow to the back of the right hand. Swirling black flames peeked from over the naughtily low waistline of the pants, and set above them was a sunburst pattern around the navel, its rays spreading a minimal distance over the killer abdominal muscles, that matched the midnight dragon that curled across the right-hand pectoral.  
  
The young man met Ash's gaze with sultry, acid-green eyes whose pupils were slit like a feline's. The fire in those eyes was at once cold as death and white-hot with a lust that was openly for sale, although the depth in those bottomless emerald pools was not for Ash. The tiefling's visitor leaned back in the air, putting his hands out behind him to brace himself and causing his already-open shirt to fall farther down his slimly muscular arms at the same time. "Did you think your guardian angel would leave you to fend for yourself in the cruel, lonely multiverse?"  
  
The use of the term did not surprise Ash, who had known this person from his earliest infancy. He had memories of trying to introduce his "guardian angel" to his parents, who merely laughed and accepted his imaginary friend; the young man only appeared to the tiefling, who had thusly learned many years ago not to speak of him to others. He had, however, always thought of him as the divine spirit he claimed to be, since he did not age or change in form at all. He had inspired the young Darkling's own taste in clothing and style of life, and always turned a sympathetic ear to his problems.  
  
"I was afraid you wouldn't be able to find us," Ash explained, though he knew that his friend could read his thoughts as easily as a book.  
  
"Now, what possessed you to think that an angel, of all creatures, couldn't track down and keep up with the person he was assigned to watch over? I wouldn't be much of a guardian if I'd been five miles away at a party that time you were almost run down in the street by that speeding skimmer, would I?"  
  
Ash grimaced, remembering the incident of his early childhood. "So what brings you indoors and away from your tan?"  
  
The "angel" raised one eyebrow, casting a look down at his cream- colored front. "Is that supposed to be a joke?" He scratched reflectively at one smooth underarm with his slender fingers; like Ashnod himself, the man's body was absolutely hairless, save his lashes, slim brows, and long black locks. "I wanted to see how your first day of school went at Waterdeep High. You didn't get picked on, did you?"  
  
"Only once or twice. I actually made some friends, in fact--or, at least, I hope they'll be friends when we've known each other for more than seven hours. There were a couple of teachers I took to rather quickly, as well. They even have a sorcery instructor!" He rolled back and laid spread- eagle on the bed, closing his eyes with a sigh. "I think it's going to be a lot better than the Hosttower."  
  
When he opened his eyes again and rolled his head back to where his guardian had been hovering provocatively, the young man was nowhere to be seen. Ash snapped his head to the other side, coming face-to-face with his friend, who was stretched out on the bed next to him, his head propped up on one hand. The boy let out a breath of relief. "I thought you'd left, there for a minute."  
  
"Never," the angel denied emphatically, his lips quirking up in a smile. "I'm glad to hear everything's going well. I'll check back on you later, kid, but for now I think you ought to take a nap until suppertime rolls around. You look peaked."  
  
"But--" Ash went dead asleep in midprotest as his guardian angel passed a hand over his handsome face, shushing him.  
  
For some time, the man gazed silently at his ward. He shook his head slowly, a touch of sober concern growing in his hot, fathomless eyes. "Sleep now, my little pawn," he whispered, rising from the bed and setting silent feet on the carpet. "You'll need all your strength for what lies ahead, and we haven't much more time. The game has begun, the first move has been made, and we're playing Black."  
  
He seemed for a moment to shimmer, then his form tattered and blew away like a piece of shadowy gauze in the breeze, leaving the room empty, except for Ash lying semicomatose on the bed, his chest rising and falling rhythmically under his too-large black T-shirt and his long tail twitching in time to his dreams from under the black shorts he wore. Only the young man's voice, like a silvery river falling over crystal, remained to disturb the silence, and even that was strangely changed: instead of one seductive voice, it was an echoing chorus of voices repeating the words of the primary tone as he spoke.  
  
"Sleep, my Black King. Soon, it will be our turn, and we have no option save the King's Gambit."  
  
There was moment of silence, then:  
  
"Perhaps we should castle?"  
  
* * *  
  
Ash woke groggily at his mother's call from the dining room on the first floor. Her pleasant voice sang out over the invisible communication spell that allowed her to speak into any or all of the rooms in the house from any location.  
  
"Ash? Are you awake?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm up," he replied, grinding the sleep from his eyes with his white fists.  
  
"Dinner's on the table, hon. Come on down before it gets cold."  
  
"What are we having?" he asked warily. Aschakha was a superb chef, but she had yet to find a reliable market for her favorite ingredients in Waterdeep.  
  
"I just pulled a cloud ray steak out of the oven, and I'm setting sundew on the table as we speak, so hop to it."  
  
"On my way," he chirped, brightening. Cloud ray and sundew was his favorite food, and this was the first time since the move that he had had an opportunity to eat it.  
  
He slid off his bed, racing to the door and pulling it shut with his tail behind him. He vaulted down the stairs to the third floor, disappearing in a whirling blur of shadowy distortion before he hit the landing and reappearing the same way at the top step of the second flight. One reason he liked the new house was that it allowed him something his other home, which had been as big but not as open, had not: the freedom of visibility it took for him to teleport. It saved time and energy, and it was a great way to annoy his mother--she usually choked whenever he just popped into his seat in the dining room, even though she had come to expect it since the move.  
  
As he appeared in his chair, Aschakha squeaked out an unladylike oath and nearly dropped her tray of cloud ray. She gave her husband, who was already seated at the dining room table, a glare full of daggers when he hid his chuckle unsuccessfully behind his hand. They settled down to eat, digging into the tender meat with forks and knives as they spoke about their day.  
  
"I finally finished setting up the furniture the way you wanted in the den," Zander advised his wife around a mouthful of her excellent dish. "I still think we ought to drape those gigantic windows in something besides that spidersilk gauze you hung, though. Even when they're shut, anybody could creep up across the lawn and look in."  
  
Aschakha snorted delicately, sipping her rothe milk. "After all the barrier and maze spells I set up on the first day here? I'd like to see Elminster himself get through."  
  
Zander rolled his eyes and changed the subject. "So, how was your first day?"  
  
Ash sat back in his chair, gorged and with plate empty. "It was okay. I met some people who seemed okay, and there are some really good teachers there so far. The evocation instructor has the same name as you, too. I forget his last name. Orpheus something."  
  
"Zander Orpheus Cain?" his father asked with raised eyebrows.  
  
"That's it!"  
  
"I had no idea he was teaching down here," Zander said with a note of approval. He scratched at his short brown hair and smoothed the goatee that framed his mouth. "I haven't spoken with him in almost thirty years."  
  
"You know him, hon?" Aschakha inquired, combing her long black locks behind her ears.  
  
"Yeah. We were old school buddies when I went to Silverymoon University. We were pretty good friends back then, although he was always a bit stiff. Maybe I'll go in tomorrow and meet him."  
  
"Anything else happen yet?" Ash's mother asked her son.  
  
"Not so far. I've got pretty good classes, and what more can you ask for than that, I guess."  
  
"Well, good. Now, help me with the dishes."  
  
Ash sighed.  
  
¹ The oneiroplate is the standard viewing device. It derived from crystal balls and such, but it looks and acts like one of those plasma HDTVs. ² Machinodes are the same thing as computers, with astralnet, a runeboard, and an oneiroplate for a monitor. ³ Ffolk pants are the same as Capri pants, except that they originated in the Moonshaes. 


	7. Like Sands in the Hourglass

Morgan: Look, two chapters in one night! I love this story!  
  
Chuchiru: What's that up ahead!?  
  
Morgan: Time lapse! (looks queasy)  
  
Chuchiru: I--I think I'm gonna--  
  
Morgan: Don't you dare! You expect me to write about a hundred days of school when I can just say, "It went well and the friends got to know each other better" instead?  
  
Chuchiru: (yarking off to the side)  
  
Morgan: Well, it can't be helped. Don't be confused! You haven't missed anything, trust me.  
  
* * *  
  
The next few weeks of school ran smoothly. All the students settled down into their routines, and Ash got to know his school, his teachers, and his new friends much better.  
  
Casanith, who liked to be called Casan for short, had ancestors from the Far East, which explained his stature and complexion. He was into loud, heavy music, and even had his own local band, although it was currently short a member, which interested Ash greatly. He knew a few spells, he said, although he wasn't that good at them and preferred his music; he also admitted to picking a few locks in his time. There was also something strange about him that became more evident as Ash came to know him; it was nothing you could really put your finger on, but he seemed to be caught up in some kind of inner struggle a lot.  
  
Kendrick had a wide variety of interests, but he liked art more than anything else. He was highly intelligent without a doubt, and seemed to be, along with Brenna, the stabilizer of the group. He was also shy and self- deprecating, though, and usually just followed the others' lead in things rather than making suggestions. He laughed a lot, but he still had "designated driver" written on him as plainly as Brenna and Ash himself. The most interesting thing about him was that, as was exhibited by his presence in evocation, abjuration, and magical engineering, he was a mage of the first order, at least for his level of skill. No magic could be used within the school grounds due to a damper field set up by the faculty, but he knew way too much about divination to be just a scholar.  
  
J'soon, or Jay, as Sara called him, was an instrumentalist with as much talent and a bit more practice than Casanith. He was fun to be around, as his happy-go-lucky mood was persistent and virulent, and his humor was wide-ranging and usually involved some sort of obscure reference to the comical images that the world around him inspired, and which he shared with his friends. He played with Casan in the band, but seemed perturbed when asked about it due to their "two-timing drummer."  
  
Brenna was much like Kendrick, but she was more independent and spoke her mind openly. She was highly accepting of others, was a real nature freak, and as much a mage as Kendrick. She was a bit flighty and sometimes cheerful to a fault, but her laughter and kindness was infectious, and she had the spirit to back up her promises as well as her remarks.  
  
Sara was an enigma to Ash. She was outgoing, outspoken, and liberal, but at the same time had a load of old grudges and pet peeves that she didn't mind expressing openly. She was a goth like him, although she didn't show off as much skin, and listened to the same kind of music she played: "heavy metal," taken from a dwarven reference to certain ores that, in their opinion, shouldn't exist in the underground due to their uselessness and the bad influence they had on other nearby metals. She, too, was a member of the band, playing backup with J'soon while Casanith sang lead, and admitted to using a few minor spells she'd picked up to put a special something in her music.  
  
As the six got heavier into their classes, they became fast friends, often meeting after school at a nearby restaurant for lunch before going home, or gathering to hear the band practice. It was at one of their luncheons that Sara shook her head and nudged Jay.  
  
"Look at those two," she said, jerking her chin at Ash and Casan, who were together in the booth parallel theirs across the aisle.  
  
"What about them?"  
  
"You don't see it, do you? Ash doesn't either. Look at the way Cas looks at him when he's not looking. There! You see that?"  
  
"Not really," Jay said suspiciously. "What're you talking about?"  
  
Sara harrumphed. "You don't get it, do you? I knew that Casanith swung that way, I just knew it! It doesn't bother me, except that he won't admit it to himself."  
  
"Oh," J'soon said, his eyes widening in sudden comprehension. "Oh, my."  
  
"Eh, eh, see? That's why he's so moody. He's all the time trying to convince himself that he's straight, but he's had been hot and heavy on Ash since the first time he saw him."  
  
"That doesn't mean anything," Jay protested. "You look at him the same way."  
  
"Nah," Sara disagreed. She shrugged and said bluntly, "I just want to get him alone sometime when he's drunk and see how many ways he can move that tail. I'm not in loooooove with him." She drew the word out comically, batting her eyelashes.  
  
"Well," Jay said, still doubtful, "should we tell him or just pretend we don't know?"  
  
"He has to admit it to himself first. There's nothing wrong with it at all, but apparently he thinks he shouldn't be like that, so he's fighting it. He'll come around, especially if Ash gives him the least little bit of encouragement." She narrowed her eyes. "I bet Tief there is bi, at least. He dresses way too much like a slut to not be available for everyone in general."  
  
"Maybe we can discuss it later," J'soon said pleadingly.  
  
Sara smiled and sat back, content with her daydreams of two handsome boys making out in a bathtub somewhere.  
  
* * *  
  
It was the last school day of the week when Ashnod finally asked his friends if they'd like to come over to his house for the afternoon--or even the night, he said, if they wanted.  
  
Sara and Casanith accepted immediately, and Kendrick shrugged and followed. J'soon produced a small ioun stone, one of those that was capable of making long-distance telepathic links with someone who had another one, that they could use to call their parents. Brenna, not to be left out, also readily accepted the invitation.  
  
"Are you sure it's okay?" she asked Ash doubtfully. "I mean, me and Sara are girls, you know."  
  
"It's all right," Ash assured her. "I've got plenty of guest rooms, each of which I'm sure Mom'll nail shut once you go to bed. She can pick up your clothes too; she won't care 'cause I asked her yesterday about all this, and she said she had to go shopping anyway."  
  
"Great then," Casan said enthusiastically. He caught a strange look from Sara, a little half-smile that said she knew something, and frowned.  
  
"Let's go, then," Ash agreed. Then he stopped, looking around bashfully. "Um," he said, scratching the back of his head with his tail, "I don't have a way to get us home. Dad's at work late."  
  
"Never fear," Kendrick put in unexpectedly. "We're not on school grounds, so that isn't a problem. Kendrick to the rescue!" He began to weave his hands in front of him as the other realized the plan and scuttled closer. With a short babble of arcane words, he put one finger on Ash's forehead and made a circular motion with the other hand. Pulling the thought from the tiefling's mind was difficult, but he managed to construct a usable doorway in the air that opened at the gates of the new Darkling estate.  
  
"Oh my god," Sara breathed as she hopped through the portal, followed by the others.  
  
Ash made a pushing gesture, and the gates swung open to admit them. Looking over his shoulder, he straightened his backpack and grinned. "Shall we go in?" 


	8. Truth Or Dare

Morgan: (from theater seat) Time to get serious! More plot revelations, more character development, and more on the feelings of the friends.  
  
Chuchiru: (gets popcorn)  
  
Morgan: This is so much fun! I get to see my story come to life! (lightning flashes) It's alive! Alive! Bwahahaha! Now my only problem is that I still don't know who to hook Ash up with. I already have another pairing in mind, which will come up shortly; that one is pretty much decided, I think, unless I get a whole lot of e-mails promoting one of those two as Ash's better half. Isn't that strange? I've gotten thirty-one e-mails about this story, and only a handful of reviews. Wonder why.  
  
Chuchiru: (shrugs) Pass the Coke.  
  
Morgan: Anyway, I need some feedback on that, otherwise I'll just go ahead and stick him with the leftover character. I hadn't really intended that, but I think the other pairings work too well to do anything else, and I can't add any more people; too many characters spoil the story, and all that.  
  
Chuchiru: On with the show!  
  
* * *  
  
That the group was impressed with Ash's house is a given. Suffice to say, they were absolutely amazed. The tiefling's parents were a big hit with his friends, with Zander's dry humor sending Sara into gales of laughter and Aschakha's warm greeting putting everyone at ease. After a short tour to point out the lavatories and the icebox in the kitchen, the six retreated to Ash's rooms upstairs for an afternoon and night of whatever fun they could muster.  
  
They spent their first few hours on the game machine that Ash plugged into his oneiroplate; with the attachment that he had but recently purchased in a local game store, they were able to use six control devices at once, allowing everyone to participate in an all-out brawl on the year's hottest new combat title. Afterwards, Ash showed them his workroom, giving them permission to take advantage of his machinode. Leaving Kendrick and Brenna to do some astralnet surfing--mostly because it was increasingly obvious to the others that each had a crush on the other, and wanted for some time alone--Ash showed the members of the local band his music room.  
  
"Wow," J'soon breathed reverently, running his hands over the large powered harp that stood in one corner. "This is some high-class merchandise. How much did you pay for this?"  
  
"You do not want to know." Ash shuddered. "Try it, though, if you like."  
  
Jay slid onto the stool next to the instrument, touching the rune that turned it on. He ran his fingers over a few strings, striking out a terrible chord, but even in dissonance the notes were beautiful. The harp left a thrumming vibration in the air even after it was deactivated.  
  
"Nice," Sara observed. The dark-haired girl stepped over to look at the drum set, taking little interest in the violin and keyboard in the other corners of the room. She picked up a drumstick, examining the quality of the wood with a keen eye; but after holding it for only a moment, she carefully placed it back in its spot. "Why don't you play something?"  
  
"Sure," Ash said, seating himself on the low stool behind the drums. "What do you want to hear?"  
  
"It doesn't matter. Just give us a beat."  
  
With a shrug, the planetouched boy lifted the sticks and tapped out an opening rhythm. When he had his time down, he burst into a professional flurry of movement, expertly slamming out a set that Sara recognized. She spoke to him over the height of the drums, asking, "That's from Cantrip's 'Mind Blank,' isn't it?"  
  
"You've got a good ear," Ash acknowledged, continuing his melody. "I didn't know you listened to Cantrip."  
  
"Oh, I love Cantrip; they were better before their lutist signed up with Solid Fog, though." A thought that had been in the girl's mind for some time now surfaced as she spoke, and grabbing Jay and Casan's ears, she pulled their heads closer to her mouth so she could speak quietly. Ash didn't notice, being caught up in his drumming with his eyes closed.  
  
Casanith's eyes lit up. "Say, Ash," the shorter boy began nervously, "you don't do anything after school, do you?"  
  
The tiefling shook his head. "Not most of the time. Why?"  
  
"Well," Casan continued, "I was kinda wondering if you might like to, you know, come over to my house and--um--"  
  
Ashnod stopped drumming and met Casanith's gaze. "And what?"  
  
"And--er--practice with us sometime."  
  
Ash's blood-red eyes lit up, his six-pointed pupils dilating with excitement. "Really? You mean it? You want me to be in your band?"  
  
"Well," Casanith replied, scuffing his feet on the carpet, trying not to seem too eager. "We do need a new drummer, you know, and you seem pretty good, so we just thought you might be interested, maybe."  
  
"You bet I am! That sounds great. Just let me know the day before and I can come over any day of the week--or weekend."  
  
"Great, then," Casan muttered, screaming at himself internally. He was turned on just by standing next to Ash, and now he had invited him over to play music? *What am I thinking? I am not attracted to him, dammit, I'm straight! It has to be some tiefling power or that sorcerer charisma. It can't be me. It isn't me.*  
  
Sara and J'soon were already discussing possible practice dates for next week with the other boy, speaking animatedly and talking about different types of music and songs. Casanith looked at the boy behind the drum set for a long time, glancing away for a moment only when Ash's eyes swiveled to catch his own.  
  
*So why do feel like this?*  
  
* * *  
  
It was almost midnight. They had run out of things to do almost entirely; not because there was a lack of things to do, but because they had tried everything once and were all half-asleep already. They were clustered around Ash's bed in the main room, with Kendrick wasting J'soon on the game device, Brenna studying a large sword minutely, and Casanith, Sara, and Ash all sharing a book of lute tabs as they finished their dinner. Aschakha had graciously prepared and brought up food for all of them, which had caused several proposals on the part of Jay to switch mothers with Ash.  
  
"That's it," Kendrick yawned, setting down his controller. "I've beaten Jay enough tonight. I think I'm gonna catch a little sleep so I can actually enjoy the rest of the weekend here."  
  
"Me too," Brenna agreed. "If I don't go to bed, I might as well go home tomorrow and not spend another night. I'll end up sleeping for twenty- four hours."  
  
"You can crash wherever," Ash told them over his shoulder. He was stretched out on the bed in his T-shirt and shorts, with his head hanging over the edge so he could peer into the book held by Casan and Sara, who were sitting with their backs to him. "Just step into the closet over there and grab whatever blankets and stuff you need."  
  
The two obliged, leaving J'soon and the others to fend for themselves in the realm of entertainment. Ash flipped boredly through the channels on the oneiroplate, but found nothing of interest, and Casan said they were all too tired to concentrate on music or games anymore.  
  
"That's what we need!" Sara responded to his complaint. "Something to wake us up, something we can all get into."  
  
"Like what?" Ash inquired with a huge yawn, displaying his fangs terrifically.  
  
Sara pretended to think for a moment, but in truth, she'd been saving this up all day. "How about Truth or Dare?"  
  
"I don't know," Jay said warily. "You can get some weird ideas sometimes. Are you sure it'll be safe playing with you?"  
  
"Cross my heart," she answered with a matching gesture and a smile. She turned on Casan and her host. "What do guys say?"  
  
"Fine," Ashnod acceded; what could Casanith do but also agree?  
  
"All right, then," the girl grinned, turning her brown eyes on Casan. "You go first."  
  
"Me?" the boy stuttered. "Ah--I guess--okay." He glanced at each of them, settling on Ash. He didn't make eye contact, though-his eyes were fixed at the spot where the tiefling's shirt was riding up as he scratched at his flat stomach with one white hand. He noticed for the first time that there was a small tattoo of what appeared to be a dragon at his waistline, its head just barely peeking over the band of his shorts and the rest of it disappearing into forbidden territory. "Um, Ash--truth or dare?"  
  
"Truth," he responded lazily. Sara snorted.  
  
"What do you think about that girl in theatre class at school--the one you have to kiss in the harvest festival play next month?"  
  
"Leila?" Ash asked incredulously, his slender black eyebrows rising almost to his spiky bangs. "Well, I guess she's pretty hot. Yeah, she's okay."  
  
Sara could've cried as Casan's face fell. *And he doesn't even know that he's in love!* She decided to try and probe him, looking for anything that might give her struggling friend a shred of hope. "My turn!" she said quickly. She thought for a moment, then said, "Ash--truth or dare?"  
  
"Truth," he replied with a wicked smile.  
  
"Oh, come on! Fine, then. Do you now, or have you ever had, a girlfriend or boyfriend?"  
  
Ash sighed. "No, and no. My turn."  
  
They played until it came back to Sara. "Truth or dare, Ash," she asked.  
  
"Truth--and don't say anything, because I did Jay's dare."  
  
"You call giving me a lap dance a real dare?"  
  
"I needed the money," Ash grinned.  
  
Sara shook her head and chuckled; Casanith was still in shock from the tiefling's unexpected readiness--and skill. "Two questions: First, have you ever had a crush on someone before?"  
  
"Yes, I'll admit to that, anyway. Three or four times, I guess."  
  
"Okay. Were they girls or boys?"  
  
"Girls," Ash said emphatically. Then he seemed to deflate a little, giving honesty prevalence. "Well, one was a guy."  
  
"No way!" J'soon gaped.  
  
"Yes, way," the tiefling said testily. "It was just for a while, and he was really good-looking, but he didn't want anything to do with me, okay? My turn."  
  
Sara's chance came again soon enough. She played one round on Jay to throw Ash off balance, then came back at him on the next run. "Ash--truth or dare?"  
  
Ash's eyes narrowed as he began to feel picked on. "Dare," he said defiantly, refusing to subject himself to another of Sara's cutting inquiries.  
  
The girl grinned in triumph. "I dare you," she said with a predatory smile, "I double, triple, quadruple-dragon dare you, to kiss Casanith."  
  
"You did not just say that!" J'soon said frantically, covering his eyes with his hands and burying his face in the side of the bed.  
  
Casanith's eyes widened as he froze in near-comical shock, but Ash, still determined to outplay Sara, frowned and whirled on him. The other boy's mistake had been in moving up onto the bed with the bigger, stronger, and faster tiefling to make room on the floor for J'soon, and he didn't have a chance as Ashnod tackled him, straddled his hips, and pinned his arms to his sides.  
  
"Sorry, but a dare's a dare," the pale boy muttered, then dove in at Casan's face.  
  
Casanith would have flinched away if he had not been so amazed. Ash's kiss was at least theatrically enthusiastic, if not genuine, but his lips and tongue were ice-cold against Casan's. His mouth was covered by the other boy's, and he reflexively parted his teeth to suck at the tiefling's chilly tongue. He was glad that he was still dressed in his denim breeches, praying to whatever gods were listening that Ash wouldn't feel the heat and the reaction that was rapidly growing in the area he was currently astride. Before he could stop himself, he ground his hips up into the other boy, whose red eyes widened as Casanith's glazed over and closed halfway in ecstasy. Ash goggled further when Casanith's hands freed themselves, one twining into his long black hair, the other sliding up his thigh and around toward the base of his quivering tail--but he did not break the kiss.  
  
"Ashnod Ephyon Darkling!"  
  
All four of the friends started in surprise as Aschakha Darkling's voice rang in the room. Ash jerked away from Casanith, although he failed to remove himself from where he was sitting, and opened his mouth to explain.  
  
"Don't say a word," his mother commanded dangerously. "Not one word! How many times have I talked with you about this? How many times have I told you the rules? Do you think because we've moved down here that things are different?"  
  
Chagrined, Ash shook his head vehemently. "No, but let me--"  
  
"No!" Aschakha growled, lifting a warning finger. "I don't want to hear it. If I have told you once, I've told you a million times--"  
  
The foursome held their breath.  
  
"--take your dishes down to the kitchen when you're through with them! Do you have any idea at all how hard it is to wash dishes that have food petrified onto their enamel?" She shook her head and bent to gather the stack of plates. "Well, just remember next time, all right? Please?" She came over to kiss him on the forehead, ignoring the incredulous boy underneath her son.  
  
"I promise," Ash said, relieved and shamefaced at the same time.  
  
"Good night," Aschakha said as she left. "Your father's already in bed, and I'm going there myself shortly. Make sure you take a bath." The door closed behind her.  
  
There was a long silence in the room before J'soon began to chuckle with relief. The others soon joined in, and only gradually did the hysteria fade away into fatigue. Sara propped her chin up on the edge of the bed, observing the tiefling, who was still seated atop Casanith comfortably. "Are you going to move, Ash?" she asked innocently, winking at the sighing Jay.  
  
Ash, who had been nodding even from his sitting position, snapped awake again abruptly. He stared into the eyes of the friend beneath him, who gazed back with a look full of uncertainty, fear, a peculiar sparkle of relief--and something else.  
  
"No," he said aloud without thinking, not severing the connection between their eyes.  
  
"I win," Sara said smugly, nudging J'soon. She grabbed the boy's arm and led him off to gather bedding, so they could sleep in the floor near Kendrick and Brenna.  
  
Ash and Casanith, their fingers entwined unconsciously, never even blinked. 


	9. The Morning After

Morgan: Well, it looks like everything is coming together, doesn't it? After this, the adventure starts to reveal itself--along with the highly elusive plot. This should be the last "high-school drama" chapter, to quote one of my reviewers--and the most serious. If you're still loyal, my tiny group of readers, please forgive me, for I know not what I do.  
  
Chuchiru: Does anyone die?  
  
Morgan: (sighs) Plenty of people.  
  
Chuchiru: Promise?  
  
Morgan: Lots and lots of gory, torturous deaths, yes. I promise.  
  
Chuchiru: Really?  
  
Morgan: No. I might have just metaphorically done myself and my story in, though. I'll be glad to take you with us.  
  
Chuchiru: Eh--that's okay, thanks.  
  
* * *  
  
Casanith woke groggily the next morning, fatigue still weighing down on his body. He started to turn his head on the pillow before he realized what the weighty feeling really was. He came all the way awake instantly.  
  
His head was lying on Ash's shoulder, and the tiefling's own head was pillowed on Casan's crown, his nose digging into the soft chestnut strands. Bursts of cold hit the human boy rhythmically as the tiefling breathed. One of Casanith's hands was thrust under his friend's loose shirt, pulling the material upward to reveal where his elbow and arm lay across the hard white stomach muscles, and his hands were splayed over a tight chest muscle that was rising and falling in tandem with Ashnod's breathing, the flesh cool under his touch. The planetouched boy had a leg thrown across Casan's own, grinding into the leg he thus straddled with his groin, and his long tail was wrapped so tightly about Casanith's upper thigh on the same side that the circulation in the flesh was nearly nonexistent. One of Ash's arms was beneath Casan's skull, cushioning him, and the other was draped over him, the clawed white fingertips just barely thrust beneath the waistband of the shorter boy's denim breeches.  
  
Casanith swallowed and breathed hard, his heart speeding up, as Ash shifted position slightly, bringing his own face parallel to his friend's even as Casan rolled his head to look. The result was the tiefling's lips on the side of the boy's face, after which Ashnod promptly began to lick his jawline with long strokes of his cold tongue, muttering to himself inaudibly in the midst of some dream. From their closeness in the region of his thigh, Casanith could easily tell what kind of dream it was. He flinched and jerked away as Ash continued to freeze the side of his face off with the paths of rime left by his feline tongue.  
  
"Um, Ash," Casan whispered reluctantly. Although he was still having some problems coping with it, he had finally admitted to himself last night as he looked into Ash's eyes that he was really in love with the boy, and he hated to wake him and break their contact.  
  
In response to his voice, Ash shoved his head closer and bit down on one of Casanith's ears, nibbling lightly on the soft flesh. Casanith lay paralyzed as Ash used the hand that was under his head to pull him nearer, wrapping the arm around him tightly, and thrusting his other hand further into the warm retreat of Casan's clothing.  
  
At the shockingly cold touch, the young man began to ache, going rigid all over. He wanted to buck his hips up to meet that hand, but doing so would dislodge the tiefling rather suddenly, ending their intimacy, and he wasn't sure which he wanted more right now. He bit down on his lower lip, trying to steady his voice. "Ash. Ash, wake up."  
  
The tiefling yawned and finally opened his eyes a little, but there was no awareness in them. He smiled happily and crushed his prisoner into his own body, preparing to return to sleep.  
  
"Ash, you have to get up."  
  
Ashnod blinked himself a little more into the world of the living, but his eyes still didn't register much alertness. "I thought you just said you wanted me to hold you, love."  
  
Casanith's eyes grew to nearly the size of saucers, but after an instant, he realized that his friend was only in the grip of a dream; he didn't yet know that he was awake. "Ash, wake up. You're not dreaming. This is real."  
  
"I know," he returned unexpectedly. "You're too beautiful to be a dream. If you're going to wake me up, though, why don't we just go ahead and--" The hand that was currently residing in Casanith's pants squeezed suggestively.  
  
Casan yelped and flinched away, the flurry of movement pulling Ash the rest of the way to awareness. His red eyes widened, then softened, then filled with sudden remorse. A pale greenish blush mounted in the tiefling's cheeks, and he pulled himself away from Casan sharply, curling into a little ball and wrapping his tail around his legs. "Oh, Cas--I'm so sorry! I didn't mean--"  
  
"Oh, don't say that!" Casanith blurted, his gaze fearful. "Don't say it was a mistake! I thought that maybe you thought it was somebody else and you were having a dream but after that kiss last night I know I'm in love with you and I want you to love me too and don't say you didn't mean it, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!" The shorter boy rolled over quickly on the bed, bringing his hand up to cover eyes suddenly full of tears.  
  
Ash lay there next to him in shock. "You--you said what?" He gulped air like a drowning man. "You're in--love? With--with me?"  
  
Casanith didn't reply, his shoulders shaking with his silent sobs, but he drew his knees further in on himself and made his body into a ball like Ash. The tiefling stared at the back of his head for a long moment, opening his mouth to speak and then shutting it again with a clack of fangs. Hesitantly, he extended one white arm and touched Casanith lightly on the shoulder. The boy jerked under his touch wincing as though it pained him, and Ashnod pulled away quickly, afraid that he had hurt his friend. Then, he scooted himself across the black silken sheets toward the crying boy and pressed himself against his form, stroking the side of his face with one finger.  
  
"It's okay," Ash said awkwardly, his tongue suddenly thick with emotion. He didn't know what he felt, but it was Casanith that mattered now. He could sort out his own confusion and feelings later. "It's all right."  
  
Casan's sobs lessened. He squirmed around to face Ash, digging into the tiefling's embrace. "You mean it?" he sniffed in wonder.  
  
"I think so," the other boy replied, off-balance completely from the event. It all fell into place instantly--the way Casanith's gaze melted when he looked at him, the way he followed him with his eyes, how he was always finding excuses to touch him, to be with him. He enfolded Casanith in a rough hug, pushing his face into the still-trembling youth's light brown hair, nuzzling at him, taking in his smell, his warmth.  
  
"Oh, gods, Ash," Casan sobbed once more, this time with a different emotion. "Oh I love you so much! I want to be here with you forever like this!" He sat up, pulling the tiefling with him, and looked around the room. The others were absent, but from through the open door and down the hallway, the sounds of voices and machinode games could be heard. Relieved and apprehensive at the same time, Casanith embraced his new love fiercely, burying his face in the joint of Ash's collarbone and neck. "Please, just hold me--just for a little while."  
  
"As long as you want," the planetouched boy whispered into his ear, returning the embrace. With a flick of his finger behind Casan's back, he closed and locked the bedroom door, and with a thought, activated the room's wards against entry and divination spells--which, he remembered, were Kendrick's specialty. He would put nothing past Sara, especially since he now saw how she had played him last night. The smug little wench had known the whole time!  
  
With a sigh, he forgave her, seeking solace in the eyes of the human who clung to him and murmuring reassurances as best he could--for himself as well as his friend.  
  
"Black Knight to D2," a choral voice declared to the deaf air. The words had a distinct note of self-satisfied triumph regarding a move well played.  
  
* * *  
  
Kendrick, his look still registering surprise, dutifully reported the last sketchy thoughts he had been able to glean from the boy's thoughts before the ward spells were turned on, cutting him away from access.  
  
"Oh," said Brenna, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve, "isn't that just. beautiful?"  
  
Kendrick put an arm around her shoulder awkwardly, patting her on the arm with his other hand. "Yes, I'm happy for them, too."  
  
"You sure took a chance with them, Sara," J'soon accused the dark- haired girl in the chair next to him. "I mean, Casanith could've just freaked out, or Ash could've bitten him, or something worse."  
  
"But it turned out all right, didn't it?" she replied defiantly. She gave a little half-smile, staring off into some other place. "I hope they really work out for each other--I mean, stay together and stuff. If Ash feels the same way about Casanith." Angry with herself as she was pleased, she dashed a speck of moisture from her eye.  
  
J'soon pretended not to notice, but instead gave her a speculative look. "Would you like to--to play a game of Lockfasts and Liches¹ on the machinode with me? Just to take your mind off of any more matchmaking, of course."  
  
Sara grinned wolfishly in reply. "Do I get to import my sixtieth- level enchantress?"  
  
"Uh--" J'soon fumbled, "I think he's got one of the games from the second edition series installed. They don't let you go over level twenty."  
  
"That's all right," Sara smiled. "I can start a new character."  
  
¹I could have called it "Castles and Crabmen." Or "Towers and Takos." Or "Fortresses and Flying Brains." Or "Bastions and Banderlogs." Or, even worse."Alcazars and Amphisbaena." Say that three times fast. 


End file.
